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From: ram@decvax.UUCP (Ram Rao)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: 3rd world savages
Message-ID: <120@decvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Nov-84 18:35:12 EST
Article-I.D.: decvax.120
Posted: Fri Nov 16 18:35:12 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Nov-84 04:41:17 EST
References: <566@asgb.UUCP> <234@rlgvax.UUCP> <12@mit-athena.ARPA> <240@rlgvax.UUCP> <mit-herm.2231>
Reply-To: ram@decvax.UUCP (Ram Rao)
Organization: DEC Ultrix Engineering Group, Merrimack, NH
Lines: 36

In article <mit-herm.2231> jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) writes:
>Good for you, putting him in his place.
>
>Nevertheless, and not wanting to minimize the sufferings of your family, you 
>can't deny that, while the British did maintain their hold over India by
>occasionally brutal (dare I say thuggish?) means, the real massacres, I
>mean the hundreds-of-thousands-killed massacres, took place between
>Indians, or Indians and Pakistanis, *after* the British left. Say what
>you like about imperialists, they do tend to keep the natives from each
>others' throats.

On the contrary, the British kept the "natives" at each others throats.

The British are (at least partly) to blame for the Hindu-Muslim massacres
that killed hundreds-of-thousands.  In the period following the Muslim
invasion in the 15th century and preceding British colonial rule in the
18th century, how many documented instances are there of communal strife?
The strategy of "divided they fall" was a major vehicle for Britain retaining
control over India.  As India was heading for independence under the
leadership of freedom fighters such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and
Mohammed Ali Jinnah (among others), it was the British that planted seeds
of distrust in Jinnah's mind.  They questioned the status minority (25%)
Muslims would have in an independent India where Hindus were the majority;
despite the secular constitution that had been promised.  The result:
Jinnah demanded a separate Muslim state and Pakistan was carved out of
India (consisting of the areas of high Muslim population).  The massive
relocations of tens of millions of people who happened to live in an
area which would become a country they did not care for, ignited the
massacres.

Prior to independence, a fellow officer of my (Indian) dad (who happened
to be British) remarked: if you Indians would only spit together, Britain
would be drowned.

Ram Rao
decvax!ram